Israel Defense Forces spokesperson sports blackface, mocks Obama

Sacha Dratwa, a spokesperson for Israel Defense Forces, uploaded a Facebook photo of himself in blackface with the caption "Obama style."

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Head of the New Media Desk Sacha Dratwa found himself in hot water after a photograph of him apparently sporting blackface was discovered on Facebook, Mother Jonesreported.

Dratwa, 26, appears to have put dark mud on his face from the Dead Sea in the Sept. 29 photo with the caption “Obama style.”

Your Black World first discovered Dratwa’s photograph a few days after an article in Tablet magazine revealed that Dratwa, a Belgian immigrant, was behind the IDF’s official Twitter account, @IDFSpokesperson, which gave live updates during Israel’s operation “Pillar of Defense” against Hamas last week.

The photograph led many on social media to accuse Dratwa of being racist. One comment on his photo stated, “You know this is is racist yeah?” Dratwa has denied being racist on Twitter and called for people to stop spreading lies about him.

He took to Facebook to address the photograph, which had been taken down.

“There have been attempts to make use of private photos from my Facebook profile in order to publicly misrepresent my opinions,” Dratwa wrote. “Due to the amount of public attention I've garnered in recent days I have decided to restrict access to my page, in order to protect my privacy and prevent further cynical use of the information therein.”

Dratwa has since made his personal profile private and told subscribers that his photographs on Facebook don’t reflect his beliefs and have no bearing on his job with the IDF.

Last week Dratwa told Tablet magazine that he believes that more people are using social media to obtain information.

“We believe people are getting information from social media platforms and we don’t want them to get it from other sources,” Dratwa said.

Who is “Lenny” the emoticon?
Although the origin of ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) is still unclear, it caught the Internet’s attention on Nov. 18 when the r/israel subreddit was reportedly overrun users from 4chan’s notorious /b/ board, who posted numerous links featuring the face. According to Know Your Meme, the face had been dubbed “Le Lenny Face,” “Le Face Face,” and “Le Palestine face” by 4chan users.